Bills unhappy about facing several teams coming off extra rest

Posted by Josh Alper on November 13, 2013, 11:17 AM EST

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The Bills face the Jets this weekend and, for the second time this season, the Jets will be heading into the game off extra rest.

The Jets had a bye in Week 10 and they had played on Thursday night in Week Two before their first matchup with the Bills, something the Bills feel leaves them at a disadvantage against their AFC East rivals. It’s a situation the Bills have found themselves in often this year as they’ve faced the Dolphins and Saints coming out of bye weeks and the Bengals after a Thursday night game. They’ll face the Jaguars 10 days after Jacksonville’s previous outing later in the season and the team has reached out to the league to complain about facing six well-rested teams this season.

“We certainly have talked to the league about this because it’s been disappointing where teams are coming off a bye or a long week,” CEO Russ Brandon said, via the team’s website. “This is the second time we’re playing the Jets coming off a Thursday night game and now we’re playing them coming off a bye. We lead the league in amount of games coming off of extra time or a bye week. It is a very, very tough job what they have in scheduling with all the different things that go into the formula and the stadium commitments and TV schedules, but it’s certainly something that needs to be addressed.”

There is just one other team in the league with as many as four games against opponents coming off extra rest, which certainly works against the parity that the league strives for in other facets of the game. The difficulties of making the schedule will always leave someone with a short stick, but it’s hard to disagree with the Bills’ feeling that it need not be so much shorter than all the others.

The Jets also played the Steelers who were coming off their bye after they played on Monday nights vs. the Falcons. The extra rest the Steelers had was the only reason they won. The Jets may have been 6-3 at the moment.

End the Thursday night games. Teams do not have the time to prepare physically during the short week.
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Fully agree with that, especially early in the season. If anything go back to having Thursday games in just the last 4-6 weeks.

The problem is the NFL generates additional revenue over its already vast TV contracts by airing these games on their own network. This is all about the enormous greed of the owners so I doubt it will go back.

As to the Bills, they’ve been awful for years and until Ralph Wilson is gone the Bills will stay that way. And yes, I know he supposedly gave all the decision making over to the GM and staff, but Wilson owning a team still limits it substantially. Great man in his day but zero idea how a modern NFL franchise should operate.

Teams coming off extra rest is an exaggerated advantage. Since 2001, NFL teams off the bye are 201-172, a whopping 54%. In 2012, teams record after a Thurs nite gm were 15-15. The problem here is, since 2010 Buffalo is 1-7 vs teams coming off rest. Since the rest of the league doesn’t have too much of a problem, maybe the Bills staff should figure out what THEY’RE doing wrong, instead of crying to the league about something that is probably a one time, random event.

I am sure the league tracks this but just like some have said when it came to the league and they asked the question what team is getting to play against teams coming of byes and the answer is buffalo they were like ok we can live with that. Or maybe it was NE, oh NE we can’t have that, just flip a few games with Buffalo and that will solve that problem.

You may actually remember the Bengals losing in OT to the Dolphins on Hallo’ween in their own Thursday night game, which was played in week 9 (which comes well after week 6 when they played @Bills in ‘research’ terms) …

Kolo Jezdec says:
Nov 13, 2013 11:26 AM
The Bills had their extra rest last Sunday against the Steelers. Should have taken advantage of that.

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Actually, they didnt. The Bills had extra rest against Miami, which they won. And their bye is next week. We GET 2 games on extra rest, so why do we play 6 teams on extra rest. I made this point in the offseason, the Bills always get the shaft in scheduling. For the past 3 seasons we have had one of the toughest schedules. This year we get the easiest, but half our games are against teams with 2 weeks to prepare.

I agree with the Bills. For all the money the NFL probably throws at software, they can’t come up with a bye-week strategy that works. the Steelers have almost always had their bye week before the 5th week of the season. It seems ridiculous that you wouldn’t rotate the bye week more completely.

I realize there are tradeoffs and teams need to “take one for the team” but consistently there are seemingly incompetent issues with the bye week.

Good to see … more teams should complain about the schedule. There are some teams that do get the shaft usually the bottom feeders.
I know when the Raiders play the east coast teams their games always start at 1:00 but when the Chargers or Broncos play the same teams their games usually are at 4:00 or are the nights games.
Whats the odds of a west coast team losing a game playing on the east coast at 1:00 … easy money.
And please stop with the “cry me a river” comments … stats don’t lie. Every year we get a last place team making the playoffs … why? Favorable schedule!

I’m a jets fan and completely completely COMPLETELY AGREE!!!! Things like this NEVER EVER EVER happen to teams like the Giants (especially), Patriots or Steelers, bc their owners (especially the Maras) are in w/Roger. Go look at the giants schedule…they will not (have not) traveled any farther than Philly in over just about 2 months, talk about an advantage. All the teams, other than the 3 I named need to sit down w/the league and figure out how to stop favoritism. It’s unreal. Even after hurricane Sandy when NJ needed all the help they could get, the NYG actually played a home game vs PITT — it never should have been played in NJ, instead it should have went to PITT like when NO had to play a home game in NY bc of a hurricane….the giants are a disgraceful organization.

I’m a jets fan and completely completely COMPLETELY AGREE!!!! Things like this NEVER EVER EVER happen to teams like the Giants (especially), Patriots or Steelers, bc their owners (especially the Maras) are in w/Roger. Go look at the giants schedule…they will not (have not) traveled any farther than Philly in over just about 2 months, talk about an advantage. All the teams, other than the 3 I named need to sit down w/the league and figure out how to stop favoritism. It’s unreal. Even after hurricane Sandy when NJ needed all the help they could get, the NYG actually played a home game vs PITT — it never should have been played in NJ, instead it should have went to PITT like when NO had to play a home game in NY bc of a hurricane….the giants are a disgraceful organization.
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The Giants play Dallas who is coming off a bye, and will have had three others. Put the conspiracy talk about Mara away PLEASE.

Mr. Wright, the Steelers are the first team in several years to play a Thursday game on the road AFTER being on the road the Sunday before. If that is favoritism, then I better clean my chimney to get ready for Santa’s visit.